Available Now!
The new Kartoon Kings monograph is now available. Get a signed copy via Printed Matter or order it from Amazon.com. In the UK, you can get the book here.
"Kartoon Kings," the first monograph and comprehensive analysis of the graphic artwork of Simon Grennan and Christopher Sperandio, is a collection of full-color images excerpted from comic book projects, video, billboards, and other of the artists collaborative public art media created over the past fifteen years. Supplementing the images are an interview with the artists by Kristina Olson and essays by Joshua Decter and Paul Krainak.
An excerpt from Joshua Decter's Essay, "Grennan and Sperandio: Demotic Art and the (Entertainment) Values of Social Agency/Inclusiveness"
"Not Public Art in any traditional or even non-traditional sense (i.e., they don’t plop down large-scale bronze objects in front of corporate headquarters, nor do they build putatively interactive amusement park rides), but rather the public (lower case p) becomes direct collaborators in the production of art, with the artists as facilitators, interlocutors, and, perhaps most significantly for Grennan and Sperandio in terms of their comic book productions, editors and artistic directors. If anything, they are somewhat connected to the emergence of so-called Project Art (with its historical lineage in Conceptualism and Site-Specificity), as well as “Service/Research” and “Relational” models (loosely affiliated with “institutional critique”), wherein practices are constituted by degrees of social contingency, interface and intermediation. Yet Grennan and Sperandio remain in a category all their own, because it is category that they have largely invented. Call it art in the service of publics and communities? Well, yes, perhaps, the guys might lampoon the self-seriousness of that claim, even as they appear to believe that these collaborative projects do, on some level, have a transformative effect upon people’s lives. At the very least, the projects demonstrate that artmaking can facilitate cultural self-representations that channel the interests and imaginations of people “outside” institutionalized art circuits."
Since the early 1990s, Simon Grennan and Christopher Sperandio have worked together as Grennan & Sperandio, creating over sixty art projects. In the art world, the name Grennan & Sperandio is known for work that is a blend of sardonic humor, sly politics, comics, and public space, and for art that gives a voice to people from all walks of life and invites them to take part in the creative process. Grennan & Sperandio collaborative artwork has appeared in museums and media internationally, including such diverse venues as Wired magazine, DC Comics, and the Museum of Modern Art/PS1.
Grennan & Sperandio projects have been written about in books and journals, including the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Independent (London), Artforum, and Flash Art. Finally, the team is straying into television: Sperandio is creator and executive producer of ARTSTAR, the first reality television series set in the New York art world.
"Kartoon Kings," the first monograph and comprehensive analysis of the graphic artwork of Simon Grennan and Christopher Sperandio, is a collection of full-color images excerpted from comic book projects, video, billboards, and other of the artists collaborative public art media created over the past fifteen years. Supplementing the images are an interview with the artists by Kristina Olson and essays by Joshua Decter and Paul Krainak.
An excerpt from Joshua Decter's Essay, "Grennan and Sperandio: Demotic Art and the (Entertainment) Values of Social Agency/Inclusiveness"
"Not Public Art in any traditional or even non-traditional sense (i.e., they don’t plop down large-scale bronze objects in front of corporate headquarters, nor do they build putatively interactive amusement park rides), but rather the public (lower case p) becomes direct collaborators in the production of art, with the artists as facilitators, interlocutors, and, perhaps most significantly for Grennan and Sperandio in terms of their comic book productions, editors and artistic directors. If anything, they are somewhat connected to the emergence of so-called Project Art (with its historical lineage in Conceptualism and Site-Specificity), as well as “Service/Research” and “Relational” models (loosely affiliated with “institutional critique”), wherein practices are constituted by degrees of social contingency, interface and intermediation. Yet Grennan and Sperandio remain in a category all their own, because it is category that they have largely invented. Call it art in the service of publics and communities? Well, yes, perhaps, the guys might lampoon the self-seriousness of that claim, even as they appear to believe that these collaborative projects do, on some level, have a transformative effect upon people’s lives. At the very least, the projects demonstrate that artmaking can facilitate cultural self-representations that channel the interests and imaginations of people “outside” institutionalized art circuits."
Since the early 1990s, Simon Grennan and Christopher Sperandio have worked together as Grennan & Sperandio, creating over sixty art projects. In the art world, the name Grennan & Sperandio is known for work that is a blend of sardonic humor, sly politics, comics, and public space, and for art that gives a voice to people from all walks of life and invites them to take part in the creative process. Grennan & Sperandio collaborative artwork has appeared in museums and media internationally, including such diverse venues as Wired magazine, DC Comics, and the Museum of Modern Art/PS1.
Grennan & Sperandio projects have been written about in books and journals, including the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Independent (London), Artforum, and Flash Art. Finally, the team is straying into television: Sperandio is creator and executive producer of ARTSTAR, the first reality television series set in the New York art world.
